Jake Arrieta Figured Out How To Overcome The Fear Of Failure | Clips | Dad Saves America

0:00 - The fear of failure, there's like a, there's something healthy about it. There's a certain amount of it that I feel like is motivating, but it pretty quickly becomes debilitating. And so where, how do you keep that at bay and keep it in the right space? - It's easy to say, "Don't worry about failure, or don't listen to the crowd, or don't let the umpire bother you, or don't worry about the home run that you just gave up."

0:24 That's really easy to, easy to say, but it's much, much harder to put into practice. There's a few things that people would say to me over the years that, that just clicked. My AAA pitching coach, Mike Griffin, would always tell me, in my bullpen before the game, so we're warming up before the game, and I would throw about 15 or 20 pitches and after I threw my last pitch, he would just tell me, "I need you to turn that concentration knob up just a little bit."

0:50 You know, and for whatever reason, that stuck with, that's one of the things that stuck with me. And then Don Carmen, who's a sports psychologist now, pitching the big leagues for a long time, he would kind of, he would get on me. Like, he would yell at me without yelling. He would say, "You know, no, nobody ever promised you easy. Like, I don't know why you think this is supposed to be easy, it's not, it's not gonna be easy, it never will be, it never has been.

1:14 - Was he hitting a soft spot with that? Did did you think maybe this should be, this should be easy? - Um, no - Like, that's a weird thing, that's kind of a weird thing to say, like, no, but in a way. - No, I never. - Why did that work? Why does that stick out for you? - Well, so what he followed that up with was, "Promise a fight, on every pitch, promise a fight." And I, you know, I'm like that, that's something I can do.

1:40 You know, I can't guarantee success, I can't guarantee results, but I can promise you I'm gonna fight for this pitch here. And then whatever happens, I can deal with that 'cause I gave it everything I had. And if I, you know, if I throw a strike, great. If I throw a ball, so what. If I give up a home run, it's part of the game. Then truly understanding how to move on without hanging onto the baggage of what had just happened.

2:06 And that, I was guilty of that early in my career. If I would give up a couple runs early in the game, I couldn't get it outta my head, I couldn't forget about it. And that's something that plagues so many athletes, is worrying about and being scared to do it again. And what I tell, what I would tell myself, and I tell all the young athletes I work with is, "That it's gonna happen again, so what?

2:32 It's gonna, you're gonna fail in the biggest moments, and that's okay, but you also have to give credit when it's due to the other, to your competition." And like, I'll be the first to tell 'em, I never want to say, "Hey, that guy was better than me on this day." But it's the truth, you know? They get paid a lot of money to perform too. You know, so if I come out on the short end every once in a while, it's not gonna be because I wasn't prepared or focused or in the moment, it's because they just happen to be better than me at that moment.